Kevin Edminster

09/20/2015
English 2010
True Face Of ISIL
Be headings, executions, slavery, rape, racism, and torture. As a hostage of the terrorist group ISIL
those were the things I saw almost everyday. I remember one terrible day that stands out against all the
other horrible things I saw and endured. It was some time in early January our captors took one young
Arab man from the group of hostages, his name was Mauth AL-kasasbeh and he was a pilot for the
Jordanian Air Force but had been shot down while on a mission against ISIL, after a few moments the
guards came back in and marched the rest of the prisoners out side where we saw Mauth locked inside
a cage wearing the same Orange jump suits that we were all forced to wear. I almost immediately
noticed that the guards had setup some filming and broadcasting equipment and I knew right away
what was about to happen, A man dressed entirely in black stood next to the cage and started to speak
in Arabic which I dont understand, after a moment or two of speaking the man took a can of gasoline
and poured it all over the young man then the guard stood to the side and took a lighter out and ignited
this poor young man, I will never forget his horrible screams of pain and his pleas to save him. As I
watch this horrific event unfold in front of me I remember the first time I met Mauth I had already been
a hostage for sometime although I dont know how long exactly. The guards brought him in severely
beaten yet Mauth still had spirit and even though he himself was injured he did everything he could to
care for and treat the other prisoners with what skills he had learned from the military.

I first came to the Syria because I wanted to help people in this war ravaged country, I came thinking
that because I was there to help that I would be left alone by the various groups fighting for control of
the country. Sadly I was proven wrong while I was sleeping at an aid camp setup in Aleppo Syria when
3 armed men camp barging in the front of my tent and grabbed me, I tried to yell but one of the armed
men hit me in the stomach with his rifle butt and told me if your arent quite we will kill you right
now. At that time I didnt fully understand what was happening I just thought to myself im about to
die over and over. The armed men took me to truck and put a bag n my head then whacked me on the
back with a rifle again and this time I almost blacked out and was in such a daze that I didnt know
what was happening around me until the next day. When I finally came to I saw I was in a room full of
people a few men but mostly they were young women and looked like they were Arab, it took me a
moment or two to notice that my hands were bound together behind my back and I saw that everyone
else was also bound and more then a few of the people in the room seemed like they had been beaten

badly. The next day I was beaten by some of the guards that my right eye swelled up so much I
couldnt see out of it and it felt like half my rib bones were broken, after they beat me they forced me
into an orange jump suit and paraded me in front of a camera and forced me to kneel, a man wearing all
black stood next to me and spoke English with a British accent this man is now our captive and we
will execute him unless our comrades held in prison our set free. Days turned into weeks and each day
was the same, the guards would come in and take the men out one by one and they would beat us,
electrocute us, water-board us and would tell us this is what Americans do to Arabs(Castillo, 3) and
while this was happening other guards would come and they would pick a few women and put them in
middle of the room and force the rest of the men and women to the sides and they would rape the girls
making everyone in the room watch, later I found out that their was families, fathers, mothers, sisters in
their watching their loved one be tortured and be raped. It seemed every few days some older and
seemingly important men would come and they would choose one or to girls usually the young one to
take with them, when this happened we all knew what was happening to these girls and our fears were
confirmed when one day one of the girls they had taken was thrown back into this make shift prison
and she told us that these young women had been forced into slavery and been rapped repeatedly and
several had been executed for refusal to comply. (Wood, 6)
Each day we were given only a little food just enough to survive off of but not enough to ever end the
feeling of hunger. Every morning the guards would bring us a copy of the Quran in English and they
would tell us to read it, several of the prisoners converted to Islam in the hopes that it would get them
slightly better treatment from the guards but it never did, however there was one man there his name
was Kassig he was a young American and he had served in the United States Army as a Ranger and had
done several tours of duty in Iraq. Kassig was different from the rest of the prisoners in that he
converted to Islam(Davidson, 4) out of a true belief in it he never once begged his captors even up to
the moment of his beheading he refused to say anything but rather stood tall and strong in the face of
his enemy.
Our only chance for news about the outside world is when the guards bring in another hostage. One
hostage that had just arrived was a Kurdish man who told us about the amount of land that ISIL had
manage to win in its war against Iraq and Syria but sadly he told us of how ISIL had taken it upon
themselves to destroy every ancient ruin in the area especially in the town of Palmyra, Syria which is
the site of amazing Roman ruins. Through out this terrible ordeal we have had to witness the one
question that we are all wondering about it why isnt the world doing more to stop ISIL? As time goes
on we have all witness the terrors that ISIL is capable of committing however I can never forget the day
that ISIL escalated the monstrosities they committed when they took a young Jordanian pilot they had
captured and they locked him in a cage and set him on fire. As I watch this all I can think is when will
the world say enough is enough and take swift decisive action against ISIL to ensure that these crimes
against humanity do not continue.

Work Cited

Castillo, M. (2014, September 1). Report: ISIS waterboarded captives - CNN.com.

Retrieved September 21, 2015, from
http://www.cnn.com/2014/08/29/world/meast/isis-waterboarding/
Davidson, A. (2014, November 17). The Mystery of Abdul-Rahman, or Peter Kassig The New Yorker. Retrieved September 21, 2015, from
http://www.newyorker.com/news/amy-davidson/mystery-abdul-rahman-peterkassig
Wood, P. (2014, December 22). Islamic State: Yazidi women tell of sex-slavery
trauma - BBC News. Retrieved September 21, 2015, from
http://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-30573385